Announcing the stars of Charity Learning 2018
The Charity Learning Consortium has announced the winners of the annual Charity Learning Awards, revealing stories of amazing dedication, innovation and collaboration on the road to eLearning success.
The winners of the Charity Learning Awards were celebrating today, Thursday 15th November. The following awards were presented to them at the annual Charity Learning conference in London.
L&D Professional of the Year: Eleanor MacKenzie, Internal Communications, Learning and Engagement Officer, Church of Scotland @churchscotland
Eleanor is a joy to work with. The fact that she loves what she does really shines through, and L&D is only part of her job role! But she has also achieved the extraordinary: 99% engagement on her learning management system (LMS), with all staff and volunteers completing the required eLearning. How has she achieved this? She spent time customising her LMS and carefully planned it’s launch, training champions, holding competitions and drop in sessions. And she makes time to sit down with new starters to explain the resources on offer and the training required. As a result, eLearning has been a great success, and she has changed the learning culture at the Church of Scotland. She’s a fantastic ambassador for L&D in the charity sector and a very well deserved winner of this award.
Top Community Contributor: Phil Maynard, Global Digital Workplace Lead, World Animal Protection @philmaynard @MoveTheWorld
Phil Maynard is a great advocate for collaboration, putting his ideas into action and stepping forward to facilitate group sessions at regular meetings of the Charity Learning Consortium. He keeps the momentum going, continuing conversations with other members in between meetings to share knowledge and expertise. He’s particularly keen to establish communities of practice and see greater collaborative working between charities with similar missions, for example by co-creating resources. Collaboration is at the heart of everything that the Consortium does, so it’s tremendously rewarding to work with Phil to bring new ideas to fruition.
Charity Learning Consortium Ambassador: Doreen Miller, Global Head of Learning and Organisational Development, SSAFA, the Armed Forces charity @SSAFA
Doreen Miller is a great Ambassador for the work of the Charity Learning Consortium. She has been a loyal, dedicated member since the Consortium first started, while working at several different charities. Throughout her career she has advocated using digital resources as part of a blended approach to learning and development, with the focus firmly on the user experience. We like to work in partnership with our members, and the work that we have done with Doreen over the years is the perfect embodiment of this sentiment. It has been a pleasure to work together to resolve the challenges that she has faced.
The LMS That Has it All!: Lou Guy, Talent Development Adviser, Teach First @TeachFirst
The small learning and development team at Teach First has turned their learning management system (LMS) into a fantastic ‘one stop shop’, offering eLearning and so much more! They’ve created their own bespoke resources and customised and curated others to create a central hub with clear signposting. For example, users can book training and mentoring sessions, give feedback, download hints and tips, read policies and practices, watch Clear Lessons Foundation videos and easily find what they need to work effectively. The result has been increased engagement from users, which makes all the team’s efforts worthwhile. It’s a wonderful example of just what can be achieved simply using good design, curation and marketing from a small team working well together.
Outstanding Teamwork to Meet Business Needs: Tina Davis, Senior Learning Business Partner & Andrew Daly, Systems Analyst, Citizens Advice @CitizensAdvice
eLearning is being used to great effect at Citizens Advice, helping the charity to meet an urgent business need to train staff and its massive 23,000 strong volunteer army in GDPR. Previously eLearning had only been used on an adhoc basis, but the small L&D team rose to the challenge of quickly rolling it out nationwide. More than 13,000 Citizens Advice staff and volunteers have now accessed eLearning since the summer - 9,000 of them in two months alone. The L&D team have shown amazing dedication to the task, working in shifts to support users. It’s a great case study for showing how using a digital approach can help organisations respond with agility to changing business needs. But rolling out eLearning so quickly and successfully has only been achieved with outstanding dedication from the Citizens Advice L&D team
Martin Baker, founder and CEO of the Charity Learning Consortium said: “These Awards are proof that it is people - and not budget or technology - that makes eLearning a success.
“Eleanor MacKenzie makes time to sit down and chat things through with people face to face; Phil Maynard embodies the spirit of collaboration, creating connections with his peers; Doreen Miller has built a real partnership with the Charity Learning Consortium and also ensures that she builds relationships with the board at every organisation she has worked for; while the L&D teams at both Teach First and Citizens Advice have worked together to achieve the extraordinary.
“These are heartwarming stories which highlight the importance of the human touch and are yet another reminder that you don’t need big budgets or large teams to achieve digital learning success.”